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Manuel José (born 9 April 1946) is a Portuguese football manager, who has coached Sporting Portugal, Boavista FC, Belenenses, and SL Benfica, among other teams. He is credited for discovering Luís Figo. He replaced Paulo Autuori as Benfica manager in the middle of the 1996/97 season, but finished in 3rd place. Despite his bad results, he remained for the next season. A humiliating 3-1 defeat to Rio Ave, lead Benfica's direction to sack him. His best results were a Cup of Portugal win, in 1992, to Boavista, and 16 successive titles in various African football competitions as coach of Egyptian club Al-Ahly. Since joining Al-Ahly, he has helped give the team a record-breaking unbeaten run of 71 matches. He also managed to win the African Champions League with the team 4 times (2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008), making him the first coach to achieve such a feat. In 2001, his first year, he guided the Cairo club to African Champions League glory with a squad comprising mostly of promising youngsters like Hossam Ghaly, now at Al Nasr of Saudi Arabia. He marked his first victory with Al-Ahly in a friendly game victory 1-0 over Real Madrid. Although reports were surfacing that Manuel José would be on the brink of taking over the Portuguese national team after Luiz Filipe Scolari's departure, the Portuguese Football Federation hired instead Carlos Queiroz. Manuel Jose was honoured by the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with the Medal of Sport of First Class for his contributions to Ahly and Egyptian Football on December 24, 2006. This is the highest honor for a foreigner in Egypt. On May 13, 2009, Jose was officially appointed by the Angolan Football Federation (FAF) as the national team's head coach. He has penned a one-year contract and will take over once he finishes the season with Egypt Giant's Al-Ahly. Jose was awarded Portuguese manager of the year 2009 by SIC TV network. He finally won the award after his fourth consecutive nomination. |
